Featuring
Dr. Juliana Rangel
President of the American Association of Professional Apiculturists
& the American Bee Research Conference
Queen Bee Reproductivity, Health & Management Research
May 22: 9:30am-12:30pm NMSU-Alcalde Sustainable Ag Center with additional presentations by NMSU Fruit Specialist Dr. Shengrui Yao & Center Superintendent Dr. Steve Guldan – Alcalde, NM Cost $15
May 23: 1-3pm, ABQ BioPark Education Center– Albuquerque, NM Cost $15
May 24: 2-5pm Queen Rearing workshop @Zia Queenbees Farm- Truchas Hands-on Workshop-Class size limited Cost $45
May 25: 2-4pm Alamogordo Extension Office, Alamogordo, NM Cost $15
For registration info visit: www.survivorqueenbees.org
Juliana Rangel-Biographical Sketch
Born in Colombia, South America, Juliana moved with her family to the United States in 1998. She graduated cum laude in 2004 from the program of Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution at the University of California, San Diego, where she worked with Dr. James Nieh on multiple research projects exploring multi-modal communication in stingless honey bees from Brazil and Costa Rica.
That same year she began her doctoral studies in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. Working under the supervision of Dr. Thomas D. Seeley, her dissertation explored the mechanisms and functional organization of reproductive swarming in the honey bee Apis mellifera. In particular, she led projects that examined the signals that initiate the mass exodus of a honey bee swarm from its nest, the identity of the signalers that initiate swarm departure, the types of agonistic interactions that occur between
competing honey bee swarms during their house-hunting process, and the potential for intracolonial nepotism during colony fissioning in honey bees.
She obtained her Ph. D. at the end of 2009 and in January 2010 she joined the laboratory of Dr. David R. Tarpy at North Carolina State University as the coordinator of the “Born and Bred in North Carolina: Queen-Rearing and Bee-Breeding Program,” through which she trained over 1,000 beekeepers across several states in the North Eastern United States. In 2010, Juliana was awarded one of 15 National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowships in Biology. As a postdoctoral fellow, Juliana conducted field and laboratory experiments aimed at determining the mechanisms and causes of queen replacement in honey bees, one of the biggest problems facing the beekeeping industry today.
In January 2013, Juliana became the new Assistant Professor of Apiculture in the Department of Entomology at Texas A&M University in College Station, TX. Her research program focuses onthe biological and environmental factors that influence the reproductive quality of honey bee queens and drones. She is also an active member of the Texas Beekeepers Association and has spoken to numerous beekeeping associations in Texas and across the United States. As part of her teaching responsibilities, she will also be in charge of the new undergraduate course Honey Bee Biology, and hopes to develop a Honey Bee Management course for advanced undergraduates in the near future. In her spare time, Juliana likes to play the guitar, sing folk Latin American songs, and cook for friends and family.